


Like Nobody's Watching

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viridian asked, as an intro to "Performance (A Lighter Weaknesses<br/>Vignette)":</p><p>**If you and a large group of people were held captive in a karaoke<br/>bar and told that if you don't sing your captors will start killing<br/>the hostages, would you take the plunge or tell everyone to make<br/>peace with their Creator?**</p><p>I remember V's "Weaknesses" stories as being almost the first X-<br/>Files slash I read, and for whatever reason I always remembered this<br/>particular vignette.  One of the finest excuses for songfic *ever*,<br/>as far as I'm concerned.  (The song is Chris Isaak's "Kings of the<br/>Highway".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Nobody's Watching

He says, Sing.

She thinks about it.  

She remembers cafes in Czechoslovakia, years ago, that were as  
filthy as this bar.  Ink staining the rims of her nails, because she  
could never find enamel in the black she wanted.  Here, too, there  
is sawdust on the floor that she has to lift her skirts above.  The  
tables are as scarred.  But in those earlier cafes, the waitresses  
were more bothered that she would order tea and not drink it.  Here,  
no one cares.

Tiny stars hanging in the rafters.  Moon a huge light outside.    
Glitter of words and music in the corner, the screen and the metal  
tang of the microphone.

He says, again, Up, baby-doll.  Get up and sing.  Lays a hand on her  
arm and pulls, hard enough that he must believe he can move her.    
Get up and sing or I kill these sacks of meat, one by one.

She laughs.  Lovely, the idea of their blood mixing with sawdust.    
Moon shimmers in it.  She could catch it, a solid blood such as she  
hasn't had in years.  Lick at the edges.  Eat it.  She says, Yes,  
please.  Do.

Bitch, he says.  Get up there and sing.

She pushes him.  He flies up, catches on the hanging glass of a  
light.  She laughs.  

Something hits her from behind, catching the base of her skull.    
Wood shatters, and she's left on her knees, licking her own blood  
from her teeth.  Smelling his.

Another one picks up her coat, her bag.  Digs out Miss Enid.  She's  
such a lovely girl, even in this half-lit den.  He says, Sing,  
bitch, or your dolly gets smashed.

Miss Enid is very, very frightened.  All these terrible men  
touching her.

She climbs onto the stage.  The blood in her mouth tea-sweet.  She  
swallows.  There is, somewhere in the room, ghost-music, a sound not  
quite like any an instrument should make.  

She remembers singing to Spike in their flat in Prague.  Lullabies  
and whispers of love while he bled for her.  His mouth on her arm.

If she closes her eyes.  The blood she smells, her blood, could be  
his in her mouth.  Sitting opposite her.  Sleek, lovely, still in  
his chair and watching her, and she doesn't even need to look at  
him, not really.

The fragments of music insist, and when she thinks, she realizes  
that she knows this song.  One of the thin, radio-haunted songs of  
this desert journey.  *The faster you drive the less you can feel.*    
Whispering it.  Even the transparent music is louder than she is.    
*The lights on the road are strange and unreal.*

She thinks she can hear china cracking.  It's nothing, it's nothing.    
It's plates and cups under Spike's feet.

It's fingers.  Miss Enid's fingers on the floor.

She sings.  Loudly, loud enough that she knows she frightens  
everything blood-bearing.  *In a night without day, on a road  
without end, darling, kings of the highway we will be.*

There was smashed crockery everywhere in their flat.  All the  
teacups broken while Spike was raging, before she had to settle him  
into his chair and make him quiet.  Cut him, carefully, to still  
him.  So she could taste him.  His blood in her mouth, in his mouth.    
His lashes against her skin.

*And you're hoping the sun won't rise.*

Blood in her mouth.  China in her fingers.

When she opens her eyes, Miss Enid is very safe, hiding under the  
table.  Her fingers will need to be reattached.  Her own blouse is  
soaking in blood.  The man with the gun is crumpled at her feet, as  
mottled as her favourite carpets.  The man who struck her with a  
chair, the one who hurt Miss Enid, is bleeding very slowly into the  
sawdust.

There are many lovely, very quiet ladies and gentlemen watching her.    
They continue to watch, very white, while she dips her fingertips  
into the bloody sawdust and licks them off, carefully.  While she  
offers a little to Miss Enid.


End file.
